PirateNinjas: Assault at Dawn
by Elyndewen Startree
Summary: The members of Mutant X go to the movies. LxJ, BxS.


"**Pirate-Ninjas: Assault at Dawn"**

**by Elyndewen Startree**

Disclaimer: I don't own "Mutant X." Which is good, because I don't know much about it.

* * *

It all started on dull afternoon as Brennan surfed the Internet. There had been a lull in anti-mutant and Dominion activity, so the members of Mutant X were spending gastly amounts of time in their headquarters with nothing to do and limited company.

Needless to say, they were going stir-crazy.

But back to the story. Brennan had found an ad for a movie somewhere on the Internet. He and the others watched the preview together and…well, actually, it looked terrible. However, their boredom had reached an all-time high by then, so they all trooped down to a cinema where the movie, "Pirate Ninjas: Assault at Dawn," was showing.

They settled into the back row of a fairly empty theatre just as the lights dimmed, Jesse with popcorn, Lexa with a diet soda, and Brennan with a box of milk duds.

Within fifteen minutes Brennan's milk duds dropped to the floor, rolling down towards the screen. Shalimar was more or less in his lap and they were so…busy…it was amazing they kept as quiet as they did. Lexa's pale eyes flicked from the idiotic movie before her to the blatant PDA on her right side. After the pirate-ninja captain let out a particularly moronic catch phrase, Lexa looked over at Jesse to see how ill he was fareing.

For some reason, he was totally focused on the screen. His blue eyes followed every movement as his hand shoveled greasy yellow popcorn into his mouth. Lexa's eyes flashed with annoyance. How in the world could he stand this nonsense?

There was an explosion – one of the pirate-ninja ships had been blown up. Lexa rolled her eyes. The special effects looked like they belonged in a 1950s action flick – presuming there had been action movies in the 1950s. She looked at Bren and Shal again - flicking her eyes away again very quickly – and then at Jess. He was still watching the dreadful movie.

Resigned to her terrible fate, Lexa sipped at her diet coke. It responded with a loud, rattling slurp. Dammit. She removed the lid and examined it forlornly. It was empty, but for a handful-and-a-half of ice chips…

Lexa sighed and looked over, watching as he devoured his popcorn. She marveled at his ability to hold all that fat and grease. Looking sadly down at her ice chips again, an idea formed in her head. She didn't intend to suffer alone any longer.

Reaching into the paper cup, she delicately removed a piece of the cold, glassy substance. And then, even more delicately, she stretched her arm back behind Jesse's neck and let the ice go.

Jess jerked and bit back a yelp as it stung his spine with its coldness. His head spun around, looking for the perpetrator, his eyes landing on Lexa. She was watching the movie, apparently with as much concentration as he had been. But her lips were arranged in the slight curve of a satisfied smirk that he was sure had nothing to do with the antics of pirate-ninjas.

Feeling vengeful, Jess flung a piece of his popcorn at her. It missed, instead landing in Brennan's hair. He may have imagined it, but Jess thought he saw Lexa's smirk widen a little. He threw another piece that she openly dodged.

Their eyes met and open war was silently declared.

A third piece of popcorn flew through the air, this one hitting Lexa squarely on the nose. She glared and dug in the cup for another ice chip. This one went down the front of his shirt.

As he patted his shirt franticly to find and remove it, she slid another piece of ice into her mouth, sucking on it satisfactorily as she watched him struggle. The ice chip in his shirt melted and he gave it up as a lost cause. He, in turn, glared at her. She responded with a smile that was mostly sweet with a slight bouquet of sadism.

"Not fair," he whispered. "Ice versus popcorn? C'mon."

"Not my fault you got the wimpier snack."

He sighed heavily. "Laugh all you want."

"Oh," she replied in a smooth tone. "I will."

"…until I do this!" A savage gleam in his eye was the only warning before his arm darted out, dumping the entire cupful of ice into her lap. Her eyes blazed and goosebumps popped up all over her skin as she tried to fight her reaction to the cold.

"Jess, you - "

"Now now, let's watch our language, shall we?" With a smirk, he turned back to the movie, crunching on his popcorn with pride and victory.

Lexa sat in her seat looking down at her soaked jeans dejectedly. That really hadn't been necessary. She scraped as much of the water – frozen or not – as she could into the cup and then curled up as best she could in her seat, shivering. Apparently her plan had backfired. 'No shit, Sherlock,' she thought bitterly.

The pirate-ninjas were sneaking into a fortress right now. The only drama in the whole movie so far had been the pirate-ninja captain's struggles to keep the parrot on his shoulder quiet when he did the ninja work. Even though the ice had fallen into her lap, she rubbed her frozen arms to get warmer.

Jesse watched her out of the corner of his eye. That trick with the entire cup of ice might have gone a little too far. She was still shivering. He analyzed the situation. Lexa was probably mad at him right now, but he really wanted to do something. And the only thing he could think of to do was just as good for him as it was for her.

Lexa started as she felt Jesse's brown leather jacket draped around her shoulders. She felt a little ornery about receiving help from him at present, but she was just cold, not stupid. Tugging it a little closer to her body, she held it closed. "Thanks," she muttered quietly, not moving her eyes from the screen.

He didn't say anything in response, but he did wrap his arm casually around her. At first she stayed stiff, not moving, but then she gave in, cuddling up against him around the armrest.

"Hey, Lexa."

"What?"

"I've got something for you."

"I'll fry you if it's an ice chip."

"Just look."

She sighed and slowly turned her head so that they were face to face. He smiled warmly and she felt a chill of unease rush through her, made even worse by the temperature of the ice. "Well?"

And he kissed her. Just for kicks. And because he really wanted to. She kissed him back, and now there were two couples in the back row of a movie theatre who paid the screen and the movie showing on it no mind.

* * *

As the credits started to roll with background music of the loud, cinema rock-and-roll variety, Lexa and Jesse got up and stretched. The movie had done very little except make them sore. Lexa's jeans were almost dry and she had returned his jacket to him. Brennan and Shalimar were already heading to the end of the row, their hair in impeccable order, considering their activities for the last two hours.

"So," began Brennan in an enthusiastic voice. "What actually happened in this movie?"

Jesse shrugged. "Beats me. I fell asleep after the first half hour." Lexa smiled as she brushed past him.

* * *

A/N: I'd like to take this time to thank those of you who reviewed my fic "Happy Town."

Also, I'll take this time to note that these will all be clumped together into a collection at some point. When that will be I don't know.

**Thanks to: **Magnus the Wolf, tigereyes320, Lady-Werewolf, bohemianbabe (I love your stuff!), and JediJen21 (As you see, I will be continuing.)

**I LUFFLE MY REVIEWERS!**


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